News
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![[info]](/megan-https-web.archive.org/web/20081113110048im_/http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif){kind=small} news | New features, site changes, overall news. (this page) |
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![[info]](/megan-https-web.archive.org/web/20081113110048im_/http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} lj_maintenance | Server status and planned downtime announcements. |
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| lj_releases | Release info on code updates and new features. |
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| feedback | Provide feedback in staff polls and surveys. |
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| lj_design | Be part of the creative discussion at LiveJournal. |
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| lj_dev | LiveJournal technical development community. |
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| changelog | Every little code change, as it happens. |
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Find Your Friends Setting, Permanent Account Sale, Profile Page, Montana, Search Update, and More
Thursday, Nov 6th, 2008 -- 4:32 pm
theljstaff |
Find Your Friends, Now with Dialog Box We wanted to give you an update about the Find Your Friends feature we talked about recently in news and feedback. Based on your feedback, the opt-in implementation has an overwhelming mandate from the people. So that's the method we're going to use. Before we launch this feature, we need you to set your preference for the setting. The next time you visit the LiveJournal homepage, you'll see a dialog box that prompts you to set your preference for whether you want your email address to be searchable by the new Find Your Friends feature. If you have more than one account, the dialog box will appear the first time you visit each account's homepage.  The Find Your Friends feature will be launching in the weeks to come. Permanent Account Sale Coming Soon It's almost here—the Permanent Account sale! For a limited time only, you can purchase a Permanent Account for only $175. Your chance to get LiveJournal for life starts on November 20. Check out the benefits:
We've been talking about this sale for a while now, so hopefully you've had some time to save up for it. Remember, the Permanent Account sale is very temporary. We don't want anyone to miss out, so tell all your friends that the sale starts November 20 and ends November 26. After that you'll have to wait at least another year for your chance to buy a Permanent Account. When you purchase a Permanent Account, you can gift a friend with any balance of paid time or extra userpics you might have. Look for more details in the next news post, and keep an eye on the Gift Shop to buy your Permanent Account as soon as they go on sale! Profile Page Goes Live The redesigned Profile page is graduating from beta and going out into the wider world of LiveJournal. The design team put hundreds of hours into this redesign, with a marathon three rounds of beta testing. We considered every comment and critique that came through feedback and worked hard to incorporate as much user input as possible. We think the profile page is much improved and ready to go live.  Thank you to all the beta testers for your hard work and feedback. We couldn't have done it without you (no, really). Montana-Bound By the time you read the next release, a shinier, faster, better LJ will be up and running on the servers at our brand-new data center in Montana. The ops team is hard at work packing up bits and bytes here and unpacking them in Montana. The new servers and data center are an investment in LJ's future; they also offer more immediate benefits, such as room for more userpics, improved energy efficiency, and, of course, cool new servers. Check lj_maintenance for news and announcements concerning the move. If there's any downtime during the move, exact dates and times will be posted there. And you can always check status.livejournal.org, our offsite status page. Unpacking is the hardest part of moving. Watch This Space Back in our lj_2008 update, we mentioned that we were going to start increasing our local partnerships in India and elsewhere. Like ![[info]](/megan-https-web.archive.org/web/20081113110048im_/http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/partnercomm.gif){kind=small} india_sport, for example. Building on those experiences, we've been hard at work expanding our global footprint with a new partnership with one of the leading newspapers in the United Kingdom. So watch this space in the next release for an exciting announcement!Search Update So, Find Your Friends is almost ready to go (you can choose your setting now, before the feature goes live, as noted above). But, as talked about in the lj_2008 update, our goals for improving search included two other projects. Where do they stand?
Word Counts and Daily Posts As of last Saturday, furiously clattering keyboards can be heard echoing around the globe. NaNoWriMo is off to a roaring start—word count updates are flooding the NaNo servers, main characters are refusing to cooperate, and world coffee prices are skyrocketing due to demand. We had an overwhelming response to lj_nanowrimo (and the overflowing email inbox to prove it), and we're all (except for our accountant) really rooting for you to finish those novels. And for those of you who are busy crafting daily blog posts for NaBloPoMo, keep it up! We know you can do it.OpenID 2.0 Now Supported In the last release, we upgraded our OpenID client support to include OpenID 2.0. So if you're a user with an OpenID 2.0 account (like Yahoo, for example), you can use that ID to log in to LiveJournal.  And More You can find all the details of this week's release at lj_releases.
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Downtime, Account Settings, iPhone, NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, Permanent Account Sale Update, Halloween
Thursday, Oct 23rd, 2008 -- 4:07 pm
theljstaff |
A Little Downtime As you might know, LiveJournal still runs on the Six Apart servers. 6A is taking a little downtime for maintenance, which means so are we. You won't be able to access the site on October 29th But the good news is that our upcoming server move means we won't have to schedule downtime for maintenance in the future (Edit: after the move, that is). In mid-November, we're moving to a completely new server facility in Montana that will make LiveJournal bigger, faster, better, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Housed in a brand-new data center, the new servers are more efficient and increase the overall capacity of the site. The new location also offers increased roaming capacity for Frank.  Account Settings Page In our neverending quest to make LiveJournal a more friendly place to visit, we are introducing a new Account Settings page.  We took all the various "settings" scattered and hidden throughout LJ and exposed them to the light. This project is in phase one, so it's only in beta for now. Go to lj_design to read more about the new settings page and find out how to test it. In phase two we'll take all of your comments, discuss them internally and on lj_design, then incorporate the discussion into our thinking and put the Account Settings page up again in what we hope will be an even easier-to-use design. And while you're over at lj_design, take a look at the revamped Profile Page beta. We're really looking forward to hearing what you have to say. It's Here! LiveJournal App for iPhone  The LiveJournal.app is available in the App Store on iTunes. Now you can use your iPhone or iPod touch to keep up with LiveJournal when you're on the go. Post entries to journals and communities, select userpics and security settings for individual posts, upload photos, use familiar LJ formatting commands like <lj-cut> and <lj user>, and more. Read the FAQ here. And be sure to check out cosysoftware_en, the Cosy Software developer community, to give feedback and get news about upcoming features. National Novel Writing Month Is Coming National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), your annual chance to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, starts on November 1. We know NaNoWriMo is very popular with LJ users, and we also know the key to finishing is having the right kind of support. Together with our friends at NaNoWriMo we've come up with a number of ways to help you get across the 50,000-word finish line.
You can get all the details about LiveJournal's involvement with NaNoWriMo at lj_nanowrimo.Don't Forget National Blog Posting Month For those of you who feel a little daunted by 50,000 words in 30 days, why not try 30 blog posts in 30 days? If you want to make blogging a daily habit, sign up for NaBloPoMo to kick your posts into high gear. LJ staffers ![[info]](/megan-https-web.archive.org/web/20081113110048im_/http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chasethestars and marta took the pledge, so check their journals during November to make sure their posts are on track (see above about fear of public failure being a great motivator).Permanent Account Sale and A La Carte Userpics Update So, we said we would know the details about the a la carte userpics and Permanent Account sale by October, but due to various product priorities being juggled in the last month, we have to delay that announcement until November 6. We're sorry for the six-day delay, but rest assured that we're working furiously to get it all lined up because we know it's important to you. Happy Halloween! It's the spookiest time of year. Treat (or trick) a friend with one of our haunting Halloween v-gifts. And keep your eyes out next week for a horrifying new site scheme. |
last.fm, Increased Limits, Feedback Request, and India Travels
Thursday, Oct 9th, 2008 -- 4:00 pm
theljstaff |
Last.fm in Journal Entries Are you a last.fm user? The updated Music field on the Post an Entry page can now automatically fill in what you're listening to when you write the post. To enable this feature, fill in your last.fm username in the field under Contact Info on the Edit Profile page. This also adds a link to your last.fm profile on your LiveJournal Profile page. Then download the scrobbler client from last.fm. When it's installed, just click the Detect button by the Music field on the Post an Entry page and the scrobbler automatically pulls through the track information of what you're listening to on your music player or music program.  You can also use the feature without downloading the scrobbler client. If you're logged in and listening to last.fm over the Internet, click Detect to pull through the artist and title of the track playing. If the song changes while you're writing your entry, just click Detect again to update the Music field. And for more musical accompaniment, last.fm also has a widget you can embed in your profile or a journal entry that displays what you're listening to in real time. Increased Limits for Poll Results and Comments Back in August we promised an increase in limits for poll results and comments. And now they're here. You can now view more than 2000 votes in the detailed view of poll results, and the limit for comments allowed for a post has been raised to 10,000, up from 5000. After the first 5000 comments, every comment will require a CAPTCHA. Feedback Request on New Find Your Friends Feature We're working on an optional feature that will make it easier for you to find out if existing friends in your web-based email contacts are LJ users. Once you find them, you'll be able to quickly add their journals to your Friends page. We know your privacy is very important to you, so we're interested in getting your feedback about this new feature. A full description, including the proposed privacy settings, is available in feedback. Let us know what you think. India Travels Community Have you explored the subcontinent? From the heights of the Himalayas to the beaches of Kerala, India is so vast and varied that you'll discover something new wherever you go, no matter how many people have been there before. We've partnered with travel writer Ajay Jain of Kunzum to create a community where you can share your stories, anecdotes, and tips about traveling in India. What was the most amazing thing you saw? Where did you go that can't be found with a Google search? Where do you want to go next? Selected entries will be considered for publication (with full credit, and only if you give permission) in travel books about India. So whether you've been to India, want to go to India, or aspire to write about India, you should take a trip over to india_travels.And More There's lots of other stuff going on, too. See lj_releases to get all the details.
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US Elections, style=mine, beta profile, Snap, and Bollywood
Thursday, Sep 25th, 2008 -- 5:32 pm
theljstaff |
U.S. Presidential Election Community With a historic U.S. election coming down to the wire, causing a lot of buzz in the U.S. and abroad, we thought it would be cool to create a community with a global view on the 2008 election. To that end, we've partnered with various news providers, including The Independent in the UK, Gazeta in Russia, and Mint in India, to allow their journalists to engage with the LiveJournal user community, asking questions and posting news stories for comments and discussion. Our goal is to encourage a lively and spirited debate between users and news providers worldwide on LiveJournal itself, and also to allow republication of user comments from within this community in print and online media outside of LiveJournal. In this way we hope to facilitate cross-border public discussion of the issues and personalities involved to provide a better understanding of the internal political debates here in the U.S. as well as the international perspective of the U.S. election. Whether your views swing red, blue, purple, or neutral, come check out us_election2008 and let your opinions be heard. Persistent style=mine for Paid Users Many of you know that you can add the parameter ?style=mine to a journal URL in order to view that journal in your own journal's style. In the spirit of giving users more of what they've been asking for, we're giving our users with Paid Accounts a persistent style=mine option. If you want to override other journals' styles with your own all of the time, just turn on the "View all journals and communities in your own style" setting at the Viewing Options page. This will make it so every journal you view will always be shown in your own style. In addition, you can use the navigation strip at the top of most journals to quickly toggle between the journal's original style and your own style. Head over to paidmembers for more information on this new feature. Speaking of paid accounts . . . .Paid Account Sale Ending Soon One minute before the stroke of midnight on September 30th (11:59 p.m. PDT on 9/30/2008, to be exact), our paid account sale comes to an end. Act now to get 20% off the purchase of a 12-month block of paid account time. Check out our paid account sale page for details. In addition, we wanted to remind everyone about the permanent account sale, coming in November: stay tuned for more information on pricing and other details. New Profile Page in Beta We have long wanted to make the profile page easier to navigate, so we have committed our best thoughts to paper (or .pdf) and put the redesigned profile page into Beta. If you want to participate in beta testing for the profile page, go here. The design team has been hard at work incorporating a lot of feedback from the folks over at lj_design into the process, reorganizing information to make it easier to scan and process. This is just the start of the conversation with our users about how to improve the profile page, and we encourage your feedback over on the lj_design post. Our goal is to continue the evolution of the profile page to best suit user needs. Snap Implementation Changes We're changing the "Enable graphic previews" setting on the Viewing Options page from a journal setting (whether or not other people see it on your journal) to a user setting (whether or not you see it site-wide). You do not need to make any changes to your settings—whatever you had selected as a journal setting will be used as your new viewing option. For logged-out viewers of your journal, your viewing option will determine whether or not Snap is shown. Idea Bollywood Club Community Some people dream of being famous in Hollywood, the so-called Motion Picture Capital of the World, but across the globe in Mumbai there is another dream factory—Bollywood. LiveJournal has partnered with Zoom TV to present a behind-the-scenes look at Idea Bollywood Club, an American Idol-esque show with an Indian twist. If you're keen to find out more about the show's contestants, or want to show your support for your favorites, head on over to bollywoodclub and make yourself heard. All next week the show will be live-blogged, providing an extra bit of insight into the running of the show.Current Mood:  pretty happy
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All the news that's fit to print
Thursday, Aug 28th, 2008 -- 5:34 pm
theljstaff |
Basic Accounts As we noted in our last News post, as of today users will be able to downgrade their account to Basic through the Manage Account page. In addition, visitors who are not logged in to LiveJournal will now be seeing ads on Basic accounts and communities; the experience of logged-in users will not change. Paid Account Sale We are having a paid account sale starting today through September 30, 2008. During that period, you can purchase a 12 month block of paid time and receive a 20% discount – this paid time can be added to any account, or purchased as a gift for your favorite LJ-friend. For full details, see our Paid Account Sale page. Announcing lj_advisoryWe are pleased to announce the creation of the lj_advisory community, set up so you can find news and information related to the activities of the Advisory Board. We recognize that it has taken us a while to get this community up and running, and that has caused some frustration. From now on, we will post topics which will be discussed by the Advisory Board prior to the date of the meeting and summaries of meetings after they occur. Throughout the year, the Advisory Board may also post requests for opinions on topics which may be discussed at future meetings. This is the official community for communication with the Advisory Board – comments will be read by Advisory Board members who will respond as they feel appropriate.RTE + Opera and Safari = <3 RTE stands for Rich Text Editor, which is the default method of posting entries from the Post an Entry page. Our Rich Text Editor is based on the open-source FCKeditor code. It allows you to make links or LiveJournal user tags, insert photos or videos, and format your entries without needing to know HTML. That is, unless you use Opera or Safari as a browser, in which case you couldn't use the RTE. That will be changing today. We are pleased to announce that the RTE has been upgraded to the latest version of the FCK code, which includes support for Opera and Safari! In addition, many of the bugs in the old version have been fixed. If you've been using RTE, you will most likely need to clear your browser's cache in order to use the new version. <strike> vs. <b> Last year we changed the visual display of deleted and suspended usernames from a line through the username to a bold font. This had the effect of making the name unclickable - which meant that no one could easily determine whether the username had been deleted or suspended. We've reversed this display, returning deleted and suspended usernames to a struck-through and clickable state. Flash Fiction Contest Update The deadline to submit your flash fiction entry to "Quick Tales," LiveJournal's partnership with Caferati in India is fast approaching. Users who wish to find out more about this exciting contest should take a look at our india_writing community. Be quick! Entries must be received by midnight, September 7th, 2008 and the contest is open to all who have a mailing address in India, regardless of where they currently reside or citizenship.Current Mood:  quixotic
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